You receive via social media a message that appears to be a friend request, perhaps from a name you recognize. What an affirmative thought, someone wants you as a friend. An ideal concept, surrounding ourselves with a circle of friends.
A quick word of caution: stop to ask yourself: is this a genuine request from someone who knows you, or perhaps someone who has admired something you wrote in one of your posts and would like to know you better? On the other hand, is this from an algorithm that has just discovered that the two of you have in common a passion for kumquats and you both have ordered online size ten socks? Never mind that you ordered the socks as a present for your brother; the algorithm don't know what it doesn't know.
So you ponder. Will I hurt someone's sensibilities if I reject the request?
Reminds me of my brief career as a telephone operator. On rare occasions I would be removed from the local call board and assigned to one of the long-distance boards -- you know, the tall instrument with a dozen cords, each with a plug on the unattached end. Back in those long-ago days when residential telephones were fixed to a wall.
In the early evening hours, supervision would be light and the lack of activity boring. I had a way to amuse myself that was never discovered and for which I was never fired. I could cause the telephone to ring in two houses at the same time. At each house someone would take the phone from the wall, thinking that the other party had called. As operators we were prohibited from monitoring the conversations, unless there was some reason to assure that the system was functioning properly, but listen in I did.
Often the dialogues were quite entertaining. "You called?" "No, you called." The most laugh-provoking were the calls that involved friends or people who recognized the other's voice. All the better if they were neighbors.
"My phone rang, so I answered. What are you calling me about?"
"Do you have nothing more to do than ring the phone of someone you don't want to talk to?"
"You're right, I don't want to talk to you. We were having supper and we most certainly didn't want to be interrupted to leave the table and go answer the phone."
Slam.
It's odd, how returning the phone to the hook or cradle sounds different from a slam. You can just hear the difference.
One night I connected two of my dad's club friends who recognized each other's voice. One was immediately accusative. "If you're calling me to ask me to vote for you as club president, you're wasting your time."
"You're the one who called me, and if you think this is a way to solicit member's support, I hope you never run for state governor."
"I don't need your vote, vulgar, vulgar, vulgarity, but I'd give you mine . . . for dog catcher."
Slam.
Slam.
My younger sister and Billy Long broke up. I connected those two lines and was excited when both my sister and Billy Long answered the phones.
"Billy?" my sister asked.
"Whaddya want" Billy snarled.
"I was hoping you would call."
"I didn't call. You called me."
"You rang my phone," my sister insisted.
"Why would I want to talk to you?"
They continued to argue, but neither one could end the conversation until Billy's mother needed to use the phone. "I'll see you at school tomorrow," Billy concluded.
One of the conversations that always gave me the giggles when I thought about it was two of my mother's backyard neighbors, Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Thanton. They both said hello at the same time and recognized each other's voice.
After several long moments of silence, Mrs. Walker said, "You have me on the line, what did you want to talk about?"
"My phone rang. I picked it up," replied Mrs. Thanton.
"Likewise here. My phone rang. Why are you calling me?"
"I did not call you."
Then why did my phone ring?"
"I repeat. I did not call you. And since you have nothing to say I'm going to end this ridiculous conversation."
"Now that I have you on the line, I do have something to say," Mrs. Walker spat out. "I'd be grateful to you if you would keep your cat out of my garden."
"My cat does not--"
"Your cat certainly does. Comes to do its business in my garden. Digs up my vegetables, sometimes the marigolds, wherever it goes it scratches everything up. And I try to recover the damage, but sometimes the plants are so badly destroyed they can't be saved. You ought to keep that damned cat at home, don't let it wander around tearing up the neighborhood."
"I don't know what cat you are talking about, but it isn't my cat. You should pay closer attention before you start making accusations. There are other cats in this neighborhood, you know."
Slam.
"You think I can't trust my own eyes?"
Slam.
What made the conversation even funnier was the fact that apparently neither neighbor knew that often the offending cat was sleeping in front of my mother's gas-fired fireplace or eating from a special dish that my mother kept near the back door.
Hilarious as the conversations were, I always succeeded in keeping my laughter under control. Had I been discovered I would have been out the door.
Long gone are telephone operators wielding long cords that link one caller with another. Connections are now made with mobile phones, transistors, integrated circuits, satellites, and even flux capacitors.
How nice to receive a friend request, but the recipient should be suspicious. Will the invitation to connect be the start of a meaningful relationship with a real, living, breathing individual, or is it an illusion? Does that person really want to be your friend, or has the suggestion come from an idle algorithm with too much time on its hands?
Idle Algorithms was published in The Write Bridge: Ideals and Illusions Summer 2025
